Peru's Fugitive Ex-Leader Trying to Regain Presidency

By JAMES BROOKE

Published: October 25, 2005

He has a new passport. He has a political party preparing his next presidential bid. He rides near the top of public opinion polls.

The only thing standing between Alberto Fujimori and a real run for the top office in Peru is about 10,000 miles of Pacific Ocean -- that and a worldwide Interpol arrest warrant. He is wanted on 4 charges of human rights violations and 18 charges of corruption, stemming from his tenure as Peru's president from 1990 to 2000.

Without direct flights between Tokyo and Lima, Mr. Fujimori would have to change planes somewhere, probably in Dallas or Los Angeles, where he would run the risk of arrest. A private plane would be expensive, and any planes available in Japan would have to stop at least once for refueling, executives at rental companies said.

''Submarino?'' Mr. Fujimori joked in an interview on Monday, offering in Spanish an alternative means of crossing the Pacific.

But before Peruvians start patrolling their beaches for the stealthy return of their fugitive president, Mr. Fujimori wants the world to know that he is preparing for a traditional Latin American homecoming, through the front door.

After five years of self-exile in Japan, the land of his ancestors, Mr. Fujimori promises to fly back to Peru within six months. On Monday he sent Luis Delgado Aparicio, general secretary of S?umple, the party the former president formed in 2003, to Lima to prepare for his return. Mr. Delgado's orders are to cement an alliance with two other parties Mr. Fujimori founded and hold a unified nominating convention by Dec. 10.

Ticking off election deadlines from a Web site printout, Mr. Fujimori said his party would register him as a presidential candidate by Jan. 9 and a full list of candidates for Peru's 120-seat Congress by Feb. 8. The first round of elections is to be held on April 9.

In public opinion polls this fall, Mr. Fujimori generally comes in second, winning 15 to 20 percent of the vote. Lourdes Flores Na?a conservative, scores 20 to 24 percent in the race to succeed President Alejandro Toledo, whose support languishes in the single digits.

''The other groups are trying to capture the Fujimori vote, so they are saying that Fujimori will not return,'' said the former president, who calls himself a ''candidato virtual'' as he campaigns through his trilingual Web site.

In 1990, as a dark-horse candidate, Mr. Fujimori soared on word-of-mouth support in street markets to win the presidency. Today he keeps up with his working-class fans through weekly talks on three national radio networks, up from only one network a year ago.

When reminded that the Peruvian Congress voted in 2000 to ban him from holding public office until 2011, Mr. Fujimori said the ban was unconstitutional because it could come only after a criminal conviction, not an indictment.

After years of ignoring the mountain of charges against him, Mr. Fujimori hired a Lima law firm last February. Last week, his legal team won a small victory. Peru's Supreme Court dropped one corruption charge, leaving 18. So he could fly to Peru, Mr. Fujimori said he hoped his lawyers would negotiate a waiver with Washington to allow him to switch planes without arrest.

His opponents say he is welcome to go home to Peru, whenever he chooses.

''He is welcome to buy a ticket home,'' Javier Ciurlizza, special international legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, said Saturday from New York, where he was asking American human rights groups to appeal to Japan to act on Peru's 27-month-old extradition demand. ''He will be met at the airport by a judge.'' Japan has declined to act, noting that Mr. Fujimori has Japanese citizenship and that it has no extradition treaty with Peru.

The former president says he is not worried about facing a judge.

''The charges are groundless,'' Mr. Fujimori said. ''To arrest Fujimori would be to set off a political earthquake.''

Although Peruvian journalists and politicians accuse Mr. Fujimori of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars, facts are hard to come by. Two years ago Peru's government received a report on Mr. Fujimori's finances from the risk consulting company Kroll Inc. Although the government paid $350,000 for the work, the report has never been released.

But with Lima newspapers stating that the report failed to uncover any secret bank accounts controlled by the former president, Mr. Fujimori's supporters have been demanding this fall that it be made public.

''To all these charges -- my answer is zero -- there is absolutely not a single proof of misappropriation of funds,'' Mr. Fujimori said Monday. ''I basically live off the lectures.'' He gives ''three or four'' paid lectures a month, which makes ends meet largely, he says, because ''I have virtually no expenditures.''

''I shop for my own food,'' the 67-year-old former president said. ''I cook my own meals. I drive my own car.'' He also gets free office and living space in a Tokyo hotel, compliments of the hotel owner, Satomi Kataoka, his 38-year-old girlfriend.

Mr. Ciurlizza, his legal nemesis, said he was not moved by accounts of Mr. Fujimori's low-key lifestyle here. ''Kroll had a very hard time finding the smoking gun,'' he said by telephone. ''Fujimori is not just another Latin American president who is in trouble. We are in front of a mafia, the leader of a mafia.''

Asked about that characterization, Mr. Fujimori smiled and replied evenly, ''I am a leader -- of the Peruvian popular masses.''

With the political clock ticking, millions of Peruvians are trying to guess his next step. Few people seem to believe that the former president, calculating by nature and an engineer by training, will try a dramatic return, by land, air or submarine.

''I don't think that he has the courage to try an adventure of this type,'' Mr. Ciurlizza said. ''But if he does, welcome! He has to be arrested immediately.''

Some analysts say Mr. Fujimori may campaign only offshore. In this political chess game, he would offer the new president congressional votes in return for amnesty.

Uneasy about such a scenario, Mr. Ciurlizza sighed and said: ''Fujimori is not stupid. He has a strategy devised to return to Peru to get an amnesty.''

Photo: Former President Alberto Fujimori sat yesterday in a garden at the Okura Hotel in Tokyo. He left Peru in 2000 in the wake of a corruption scandal. (Photo by Charles Pertwee for The New York Times)